Reading Marie al-Khazen's Photographs

Gender, Photography, Mandate Lebanon

Yasmine Nachabe Taan

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781350111585
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: History of Photography

The Lebanese photographer Marie al-Khazen seized every opportunity to use her camera during the years that she was active between 1920 and 1940. She not only documented her travels around tourist sites in Lebanon but also sought creative experimentation with her camera by staging scenes, manipulating shadows, and superimposing negatives to produce different effects in her prints. Within her photographs, bedouins and European friends, peasants and landlords, men and women comfortably share the same space. Her photographs include an intriguing collection portraying her family and friends living their everyday lives in 1920s and '30s Zgharta, a village in the north of Lebanon. Yasmine Nachabe Taan explores these photographs, emphasizing the ways in which notions of gender and class are inscribed within them and revealing how they are charged with symbols of women's emancipation to today's viewers, through women's presence as individuals, separate from family restrictions of that time. Images in which women are depicted smoking cigarettes, driving cars, riding horses, and accompanying men on hunting trips counteract the common ways in which women were portrayed in contemporary Lebanon.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

---

Marie al-Khazen was a Lebanese photographer. She was born in 1899 and passed away in 1983. She took the majority of her photographs in the north of Lebanon in the 1920s and 1930s. Her photographs were compiled by Mohsen Yammine, a Lebanese collector whose collection of photographs was later added to the Arab Image Foundation’s archive.¹ Al-Khazen’s work includes a number of intriguing photographs portraying her family and friends going about their everyday lives in Zghorta, a village in northern Lebanon.² Al-Khazen, a local member of the bourgeoisie, seized every opportunity to use her camera and capture stories of her surroundings.³ She not only documented her trips around tourist sites in Lebanon, but also creatively experimented with her device by staging scenes, manipulating shadows, and superimposing negatives to produce different effects in her prints. Within the borders of her photographs, Bedouins and Europeans, peasants and landlords, and men and women comfortably share the same space. Al-Khazen’s playful and rigorous experimentation suggests that she was not an untrained amateur photographer; nor was she, however, a professional photographer, and she did not practice photography for commercial purposes.

Most of Marie al-Khazen’s relatives who were interviewed for this study were not familiar with the photographs and had difficulty recognizing themselves or other members of the family in them—at times, they couldn’t even recognize Marie herself. In one such instance, a member of the al-Khazen family was attending an exhibition at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and came across one of al-Khazen’s photographs by chance. She recognized her aunt not in the photograph but after reading her name in the caption.⁴ It was in this way that al-Khazen’s forgotten talent, stashed away in a box for more than six decades, was discovered by one of her family members. The remaining descendants of Marie al-Khazen’s family remember her taking photographs, but most of them cannot recall seeing the printed results. This could make it safe to assume that al-Khazen may not have printed a large number of her negatives on paper. She must have used a Kodak Eastman model and later—when it was made available on the market—a Box Brownie to produce these negatives. We have no evidence to show that prints of these photographs exist, nor to imply that printed versions circulated among al-Khazen’s friends and family members. During the period when these photographs were taken, the Kodak Eastman model and later the Box Brownie and other photography company devices were widely commercialized through advertisements in the press. Some of these advertisements appear to primarily address women.⁵

When I visited al-Khazen’s house in Zghorta, there were no lingering traces of the existence of photographic equipment except for the room her niece remembers as the darkroom. She recalls being afraid of the darkness in this room and wondering why it was always devoid of light. Another possible indication of al-Khazen’s interest in photography was her exploration of various chemicals, particularly through the practice of taxidermy. According to her relatives, al-Khazen was a passionate hunter: “Whenever she heard of a porcupine appearing in the surrounding mountains she would head straight to the mountain, armed with her rifle,” recounts her niece.⁶ Her interest in “shooting” and using chemicals is interesting to my study as it implies that she dealt with chemical products to “arrest” the decomposition of animal bodies. This practice of arresting the decay of a living entity can be metaphorically understood in relation to the chemical process used for printing negatives: arresting a fleeting moment by fixing it on paper.⁷ Owning a camera and taking photographs as a leisure activity was common practice among most of the bourgeois families in Lebanon at the turn of the twentieth century.⁸ Al-Khazen’s wealthy family background allowed her to own a camera and document her activities around and beyond the al-Khazen mansion, ranging from embroidery and poetry readings to horseback riding, piano playing, fishing, hunting, and traveling.

Like other serious amateur photographers, Marie al-Khazen was attracted to themes such as excursions, the seaside, children, and animals. Despite the fact that she did not practice photography as a profession, her photographs are evidence of significant creative experimentation and control over the image. She must have been in her mid-twenties when she was at the height of her photographic experience, by which time the act of photographing consisted of pulling the trigger, turning the key, and pressing the button. However, al-Khazen’s photographic practice consisted of much more than just pressing a button. Her choice of topic, subjects, settings, and background, including her decisions on when to capture the image and what directions to give the model posing in her photos, are all evidence of her investment in photography.⁹ She can be seen as a serious amateur photographer whose principal body of imagery was created in domestic spaces and over the course of family trips. She recorded her life as it was happening. The immediacy of the photograph coupled with the instantaneous nature of the device, produce interesting effects that might not have been planned by the photographer. The capacity of photography as a medium to seize a world in flux, to catch events as they are happening, is a crucial element to this study. This aspect renders her pictures precursors to modern photography, where subjects are more likely to be depicted in a relaxed and improvised manner. In a number of her photographs, al-Khazen improvised and experimented with the medium; in others, she carefully controlled her shutter speed, cropped her image, and studied the lighting and position of her subjects vis-à-vis her camera. Al-Khazen has been compared to the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. Fouad Elkoury, a Lebanese photographer based in Paris, observes,

Cartier-Bresson was also from a wealthy family, had access to a camera, and took pictures of what was around him. It was only in his 40s and 50s that he decided to commercialize his work. I’m sure if Marie al-Khazen had lived in another social context she would have done the same.¹⁰

Elkoury further explains that, “although photography was available to the Arab bourgeoisie, it was regarded as a hobby. To pursue it professionally would have lowered the photographer’s social status to that of a craftsperson.”¹¹ Stephen Sheehi, in his essay, “A Social History of Early Arab Photography or a Prolegomenon to an Archaeology of the Lebanese Imago,” describes al-Khazen’s photographic practice as reminiscent of Gertrude Bell’s in her portrayal of peasants and Bedouins, which “display an anthropological impulse.”¹²

There is a long history of a relationship between photography and anthropology that can be traced back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with the production of anthropological evidence at the time.¹³ However, comparing Marie al-Khazen’s anthropological impulse in 1920s and 1930s Lebanon to Gertrude Bell’s photographic practice should be more nuanced here. Photography framing and practice throughout the history of anthropology was probably very different when practiced by non-local travelers of different cultures than when practiced by local (indigenous) photographers depicting their own cultures, as is the case with al-Khazen. Interestingly, these concerns about translation and epistemology may also apply when the anthropological impulse is displayed by the local indigenous photographer, what with the power dynamic challenges of the anthropological gaze.¹⁴

Marie al-Khazen, whose first camera was a gift from a well-traveled Lebanese francophone poet and close friend of the al-Khazen family, Hector Klat (1888–1977), may be seen as an icon of modernity with her display of anthropological impulse.¹⁵ Although she lived in a rural area of northern Lebanon, she strove to represent herself and her family as urban and cosmopolitan in contrast with the peasants and Bedouins. By portraying herself with friends and family in front of various landmarks around the country, such as Baalbek, the bay of Jounieh, and the Beirut port, she expressed a mobility that was not accessible to other Zghortawi villagers.

The al-Khazen family’s background

The al-Khazens, a prominent Maronite family that ruled the Keserwan area from 1545 onwards,¹⁶ played an important role in the history of feudal Lebanon.¹⁷ During the period when Yusef Baik Karam ruled the area of Zghorta, sheikh Said al-Khazen, Marie al-Khazen’s grandfather, moved to Zghorta.¹⁸ The sheikh was offered a plot of land to build a house on the hill, which later was referred to as Tallet al-Khazen, or the al-Khazen Hill. This hill is adjacent to Zghorta from the Jwyt river, west of Saydet Zghorta Hospital. When Marie al-Khazen’s father passed away and, after him, her brother sheikh Rashid al-Khazen, her younger brother sheikh Khazen al-Khazen became head of the family. When Khazen al-Khazen was away dealing with political matters, Marie al-Khazen became mistress of the al-Khazen house sitting atop the isolated al-Khazen Hill. She managed the farmers and large peasant community working and gathering crops from the al-Khazen lands. The al-Khazens, like other prominent notable families during the Ottoman rule, lived with their shuraka, or sharecroppers; the peasant families who worked their lands appear in the background of many of al-Khazen’s photographs.

The women in Marie al-Khazen’s family, such as her grandmother, Sultana Daher, her mother, Wardeh Torbey, and her sister-in-law, Dalal Karam, were powerful women. In the countryside, men often migrated to the cities or to the battleground to defend their lands and rights from their encroaching neighbors—and the al-Khazens were no strangers to this, as they were involved in many disputes over family honor and land, especially in Keserwan and Zghorta. It was in such cases that the women looked after the land, with the exception of Marie al-Khazen’s sister-in-law, Dalal, known to have been a heavy gambler who lost most of her husband’s fortune. During the temporary absence of men, not only did the women have to look after the livestock, but they also took on family responsibilities. They had to make a range of decisions that would have usually been made by men.

Marie al-Khazen was living within a large female community of sisters, sisters-in-law, and nieces. Her grandmother, mother, and sister-in-law all belonged to politically well-established families in the north of Lebanon such as the Daher, Torbey, and Karam families. Marie al-Khazen’s grandfather moved to Zghorta from Keserwan in order to marry Wardeh Daher, who came from another wealthy family of notables. In order for her family to agree to the marriage, he had to quite literally follow his wife and settle in her village. The marriage linked the al-Khazen family, provincial Keserwan notables, to the Daher family, Zghorta merchants and established businessmen. The ...